WHAT PLOW? Must have missed something here. Thought we didn't have a plow to clear the line for the March run. Please post pictures and from where it came. Sounds like the crew really "Made the Snow Fly" to use a slight modification of Leonard Atwood's words.

We built a snowplow to fit on the end of the diesel engine some years ago. However what would be really nice to have is a real snowplow car with a flanger. And more power - #52 sometimes doesn't have enough oomph, and a doubleheading #52 and #10 is not twice the power of #52.

Recommended viewing from 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KySu8wd5yToThe excited cry, "I got it!" is Mike Fox celebrating the picture later seen on the front page of the Jan/Feb 2008 WW&F Newsletter and the January 2010 calendar page.Enjoy!

Back before the Winter Work Weekend one of our great chefs, Brigid did some re-organizing of the kitchen cabinets. She (and Linda) had cleaned the kitchen and moved some of the supplies around to get ready for feeding a larger crew. A bunch of us were in the kitchen one Saturday and Brigid showed us the results of her work. She opened the cabinet above the telephone and it was all cleaned out - except for the cookies on the bottom right shelf. She said that she was asked not to move the cookies from that location but didn't know why. She thought maybe it was to keep the cookie hunters happy. I asked her if she knew why there were fig newtons in there and she said she didn't know. She thought they were someones "private stock". I told her that they were Harrys favorite cookies and that Clarissa always kept them in there. John Bradbury and later Fred continued to purchase fig newtons for that cabinet after the railroad bought the house. It's another one of those interesting things about the WW&F. The fig newtons in the cabinet tradition has been kept even though Harry has been gone almost 10 years.

I got the firewood in early and had some spare time so I decided to write a little regarding the work on #9's rear frame. Our aim was to get everything assembled so we could mark the cross braces for drilling. Zack had set the main rails in a gig so we could line and true the frame. The rails are heavy but we had the overhead crane so I thought it wouldn't be too bad. It turns out that setting, leveling and squaring the side rails and cross members was a lot harder than I thought. Ed L. and I spent most of the morning getting the frame true but after we tightened the clamps on the cross braces we realized that the second (front bolster brace) was off by 1/16 of an inch on the west side. The brace sisters with the bolster so this was a problem. We re-measured everything and found (with Jason's help) that the cross brace had slipped because the tab was slightly bent and forced things out of true. It was a bit frustrating after all the work. The frame has to be spot on because it helps the locomotive tram properly. At that point we stopped work to go to the rules class. Jason told us that the cross members will be pulled out so the tabs can be welded and shaped. Once the mill work is finished we will re-insert the cross braces and do everything over, then mark the brace tabs for drilling. The final bolting will not happen until after the boiler is set in. This is because the boiler will be brought in from the rear and the firebox needs room to move through the frame rails.

Anyway, working on the frame one part at a time reminded me of one of Harry's favorite stories. I'm not sure why this came to mind, maybe because the frame looks like the stringers of a small bridge.

Harry was an Electrical Engineer by trade but he also had an interest in how things were built. He told me that the great suspension bridge at Niagara Falls was started by a single thread. When the wind was favorable, the engineers sent a kite across with a thread attached to the tail. A team on the far side caught the thread and pulled the kite down. They pulled a bigger string over with the kite string and then a rope over with the string. Smart work. Eventually cables were strung and the bridge was built. The story gives me the incentive to go back and work on the frame again ... of course the thought of #9 in steam is an even bigger incentive!!

Last Saturday I took a group of visitors out on the railcar and there was an elderly couple seated behind me. The front seat was empty so I invited Bryce Weeks to ride along. We followed the steam train out by 10 minutes. As we got to AC the train was just clearing the North switch on it's trip north to EoT. We went into the siding to clear for #10 when it came through, working south. I shut the T down and gave a brief talk on why railroads built gasoline powered railcars in the 1920's and into the Great Depression. Bryce asked what the Depression was and I gave him the dates and short description. When I finished, the fellow in the seat behind us began telling us what it was like. He said "I Grew up in Rhode Island in the 1930's and my family didn't have much. In the Summer I spent part of the week looking for bottles to trade in. If I raised 10 cents I went to the movies Saturday afternoon". He went on, "There was no television back then so the first thing you saw at the movies was a newsreel - then cartoons and the feature. There used to be serial movies that you had to see each week to keep up with the story. If you didn't have any money for the theater you had to ask your friends what happened that week". His wife spoke up telling us that she didn't have money for the movies, that their family had a small farm and raised much of their food to live on. She said "We went for years with very little and then things started to get better in 1936-'37". She added "By 1939 my father had full time work and we had store bought goods, then along came the war and everything was rationed so we again had to do without". The fellow then told us that he was drafted into the Army in 1943 and rode a troop train from Providence to Boston to go overseas by ship. His wife told us about the ration books that her family had during the war. The books had small coupons that the store clerk would tear out with each purchase. She said that her fathers Model A had a (Ration A) sticker on the windshield that allowed her dad to buy gasoline just once a week. She said he used to shut the car off going down long hills to save gas.

Bryce listened intently and I was mesmerized. I could have listened to their stories for hours. Number 10 crested the hill at the Yard Limit and the conversation ended. I started the T and moved up to the North switch. I got out and threw the switch to get us out on the main once the steam train passed AC station. At Rosewood I cranked the T's lifting jack and turned the car. This time it didn't seem as difficult. We went back to Sheepscot and I thanked everyone for riding, shaking hands with the couple in the seat behind me. They said they enjoyed the ride. I think I got more out of that trip than they did.

Great story! Many people today have no idea what folks went through back in the 30s and 40s. We're so used to having everything we want "right now", that it would be difficult to do without as people did then. Growing up in the 40s and early 50s, I experienced some of what your riders described. My dad still saved balls of string, foil wrappers from candy bars, and he even spent hours retrieving bent nails from a nearby construction project and straightening them with a hammer to use for himself. In a way, I think that simple life was better for people. It taught them self reliance, thrift, and the value of things. I'm glad I experienced it.

Father's Day went well at Sheepcot. There were many fathers and sons, quite a few Grandfathers and at least one Great Grandfather. I had some time to speak to the Great Grandfather who is 93 years old and had come from Florida to visit relatives. He told me that he grew up in Lincoln County and worked at a number of places in Whitefield and Wiscasset. He remembered the WW&F because his Aunt used to take the train to school. He rode the line a couple of times and remembers empty milk cans banging around. He said that after the railroad shut down he would sometimes go to the Wiscasset upper yard to look around. One day there was smoke coming from the large shop building and he went in to see what was going on. He was surprised to see #3 with a fire in her firebox. He said that a man there told him that a Mr. Moneypenny was there testing the engines. (As we all know Mr. Moneypenny eventually purchased #9) The day that occured was in 1936 and the fellow told it like it was yesterday. He added with pride that he is a life member of the museum and that his story with a few photos are in the archives.

Just a few years ago my wife and I had gotten married a few days earlier. Traveling through the Bangor area they had just painted a couple of the locomotives and I wanted to stop and get a photograph. Into the office of the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad we went to sign papers so that we could enter the property with permission. We were both in our twenties but I have always looked a little elder. Anyway the woman at the counter of whom had much more epoch then I, looked up over her glass, from her desk, and asked me if my daughter was going too. My new bride very swiftly resounded with a smile and said “Yes she is!”. So now with a solar panel on the top of my head, I keep a engineers cap on most of the time outside. And have done so for years. And the gray hairs that do go around the sides are very precious to some of us. So those of you with a full head of hair and with few or all gray —at least you have hair. And enjoy the benefits and the respect of growing mature. I for one have no intention of growing old because of the way I look, or for my age. Ed Deere